Baroness Vivien Stern blogs about her fourth visit to Tajikistan

The following is a post by Baroness Vivien Stern.

I am now back in the UK after my fourth visit to Tajikistan. This was the longest visit I have made – it lasted from 22 to 29 May – and also the hottest. The temperature reached 35 degrees on some of the days. It was also the first visit I have made in my official capacity as Chairman of the British-Tajikistan All-Party Parliamentary Group in the UK Parliament. The purpose of the Group is to build relations between Britain and Tajikistan and I think my visit helped to do that in a number of ways.

I was glad to have a meeting and very useful discussion with Foreign Minister Sirojidin Aslov. We discussed whether Tajikistan would be prepared to sign up to the initiative of the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, to strengthen the international effort against sexual violence as a weapon of war.

This initiative has already been supported by 148 members of the United Nations; Mr. Aslov agreed Tajikistan would seriously consider adding its name to the list of supporters. Mr. Aslov is planning to visit the UK in July and he accepted my invitation to visit the UK parliament in Westminster and give a talk to members of parliament.

I also welcomed the opportunity to visit a project in Khuroson District supported by the UK Department for International Development and run by Save the Children Fund, Tajikistan. The project helps women to get together in groups, start saving money regularly and then decide together how to spend the saved money to improve the life of the community.

Their money goes for example to improving the medical services, lending to a group member who has a small business, buying seeds for their small farms, buying school uniforms. The groups organise events and meetings with other groups to learn from what has been done elsewhere. So women learn skills, get more confidence, improve their children’s lives, provide a support system for each other, become economically more productive and much more. There are now over 3000 groups involving 40,000 women.

Please click on the picture to see Flickr photo gallery of Baroness Vivien Stern’s trip to Tajikistan.

My thanks are due to General Izatullo Sharipov, Deputy Minister of Justice and Head of the Penitentiary Department, who arranged for me to visit two prisons, the women’s prison in Nurek and the Juvenile Detention Centre in Dushanbe. I was able to see the conditions in which the women prisoners and the boys in the juvenile centre lived. The accommodation was good and in both institutions there was plenty of outside space for the prisoners to be in the fresh air.

I was also glad to meet Farkhod Rakhimov and Bakhtiyour Khudoyorzoda from the Upper House of the Parliament, Majlisi Oli.  We discussed ways of strengthening the relationship between the parliament of the UK and the Parliament of Tajikistan.

The opportunity to meet NGOs was very welcome. The coalition of ngos against torture is well known and admired in other parts of the world and I was able to spend some time with them during my first day in Tajikstan and hear about the work they are doing in cooperation with the Government and the Ombudsman to help with the implementation of the actions against torture that the Government is introducing.

I also welcomed the opportunity to talk to the trainee diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to answer their questions about recent developments in Europe such as the elections to the European parliament. On my last day in Dushanbe I enjoyed appearing on Radio Vatan, answering very thoughtful questions that were sent in by the radio audience.

My programme was to include a visit to Khorog, to meet the governor, visit the prison there and see some of the spectacular scenery. Unfortunately that was in the end not possible. So I hope that I shall be able to visit again soon and that I will be able to go to Khorog and see for myself another beautiful part of a most beautiful, warm and welcoming country.